


Barbara and the UP Deathclaws

by PeacefulPhoenix



Series: Fallout 4: Origins [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Character Spoilers, Definitely no gay subtext, Expansion on backstory, F/M, Gore, Origin Stories, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, University Point Deathclaws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeacefulPhoenix/pseuds/PeacefulPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic is based on the final affinity conversation with Deacon: Once, a long time ago, Deacon lived a perfect life on a farm with his wife Barbara, pretending his past with a synth-hating gang called the University Point Deathclaws didn't exist. Nothing perfect lasts forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barbara and the UP Deathclaws

It had been 4 years, 8 months, and 4- no, 5 days since Deacon had left the University Point Deathclaws. Not that he was counting or anything. In all this time he had moved on. He didn’t stay up late at night seeing the face of the person they’d murdered. He didn’t lose himself in working, hoping to exhaust himself and drive away the thoughts. His shoulders didn’t hang low, the weight of the world on his shoulders. That would be ridiculous. It had been almost 5 years. Any reasonable person would have moved on. 

And Deacon most definitely was a reasonable person. He was a simple farmer with a simple house and a simple - no, no one could ever call Barbara simple - wonderful wife. One day soon, maybe they would have wonderful children. He would be a well adjusted father with a well adjusted family. He wouldn’t be a murderer.

But he was a murderer. And he wasn’t a reasonable person. And those voices and images did still haunt him. Every. Waking. Moment. Every moment without her, that is. 

Barbara. His light. His love. His safety. 

They had met as most people did in the wasteland. His modest farm had become overrun with feral ghouls in the night and while he’d barricaded the door he was certain he wasn’t making it out of it alive. She’d swept in like an angel with a shovel and shotgun. Deacon didn’t believe in love at first sight but she certainly had him reconsidering.

They were married now. They were happy. A couple walls and defenses kept their growing farm out of harm’s way most of the time and they could handle the rest. Everything should have been easy and happy and yet Deacon was so always so tired. 

“Deacon, honey, please. Just tell me what’s wrong. I’m sure we can fix whatever it is. Together,” she said one night, face lit only by the flickering candles on the table next to the couch they were sitting on. Her hand closed over his as she said together. 

It took everything in him not to pour everything out to her. His eyes met her’s. Her kind, sweet eyes that he could stare into for years. They spoke of only love and concern. He knew that they would twist into disgust if he told her. And so he said nothing. “Just a long day. Diamond City keeps wanting us to supply more and more. Don’t know if we can keep up.”

He pretended not to notice as she withdrew her hand and disappointment swept her features briefly. It was for her own good. Why did it feel like he was hurting her? “I’m sure we’ll find a way to manage. You’re pretty resourceful.” She stretched back on the couch, throwing her outstretched legs into his lap. “Would you read to me again? Shakespear this time.”

Never one to deny her anything but his past, he leaned over the arm of the couch and scooped the book into his hands. “Of course, my love. Where were we?”

Her eyes slid shut. “Desdemona was telling about the council people how she wanted to marry Othello. Remember?” He hummed in response and began reading. They’d been on this part for almost a week, in fact. Barbara could never stay awake for very long once he began reading. 

Tonight was no different. Within 15 minutes her steady breathing filling the cabin. He slipped a mark into the book before shutting it and blowing out the candles. Gently he lifted her from the couch into his arms, carrying her to their bed, only the light of the moon through their windows to guide him. 

When he awoke the next morning, she was already gone. Panic took over for about 30 seconds before he remembered. Right. Once a week she went to the nearest Minuteman settlement for supplies. He didn’t like her going alone but the road was generally pretty safe and they knew to look out for her. 

He ate the sweetroll she’d left on a plate beside the bed for him while he dressed and checked his rifle for ammo. There were still enough bullets. Still, it wouldn’t hurt if she brought some more back. 

He’d been out in the crops for hours when he saw figures lurking on the edge of their fences. In under a second, his gun was in arms, cocked, and leveled at the figures. “You better show your faces right now if you want to keep ‘em,” he called. A bluff. He had no plans to shoot someone or waste the ammo but they didn’t need to know that. 

When the figures stood tall, hands up, he reconsidered if shooting them would actually be a waste of his bullets. 

“Get out.”

They walked forward, led by boy in particular. Deacon knew those glasses, the walk, that jacket all too well. The University Point Deathclaws. “Aw, come on! It’s been too long man. You’re not even gonna offer us a drink or something?”

He readjusted the rifle on his shoulder, keeping it pointed right at the man’s heart. “I said leave.”

He continue forward until the barrel was pressed into his chest. “Come on, Deek. We come in peace! Have some information I thought might be… interesting to you.” He knew him too well - knew he couldn’t pull the trigger, knew he wasn’t one for violence. 

He lowered the gun. 

“I don’t care what you have to say.” Except he did. The curiosity was going to kill him and he knew it but what’s one more thing killing him anyways. 

The Deathclaws leader’s lips curled up into a smirk. “That’s a shame. We were going to offer you to the chance to get out before things get bloody. I know how much you hate violence. Much easier to run away and leave behind the people you love right?” Deacon knew that he was staring at him through those sunglasses. Knew he could read every emotion on his face while his own remained hidden. It made him feel so exposed and yet he couldn’t look away. 

It took him a while to process it. The words ‘before things get bloody’ and ‘leave behind the people you love’ played over and over in his head. “No. No don’t you dare! She’s done nothing to you! It’s me you want.”

“M’afraid that’s not how it works, Deacon. It’s not cause she’s your wife. That’s just an added bonus.” The farmer’s hands balled into fists and he was ready for a fight. The other man seemed to pick up on that too. “We’re just trying to do you a favor here. It’s up to you if you accept it.”

They disappeared as quickly as they’d come without a word and only once they’d disappeared from sight did he realize how badly he was shaking. 

A twig snapped behind him and once again the gun was raised. When Barbara froze he let out a breath and lowered it. How long had it been? How long had he been standing here? How much had she seen? “Deacon! Are you okay? Who were those people? Honey, you’re shaking.” Too much She’d seen too much.

He said nothing, instead throwing an arm around her and beginning to walk back to the cabin. Only once he was seated on the couch with a can of… somewhat purified water did he speak. “They were no one. Some gang that just moved into the area.” He jaw was set and he stared straight ahead. He knew it was an obvious lie and he knew it. He just prayed that she would let this slide like so many things before.

She didn’t. “I’m done with the lies! If you want to suffer in silence all the time, I’m hurt that you don’t trust me enough to tell me what’s wrong but I’ll let you make that choice. This is different. Those men looked dangerous.” Her eyes lost the fire they’d held seconds earlier and softened as she let out a sigh. “Please let me in.”

He wanted to. He really, really, wanted to. He wanted to feel free again. Loved despite his past. “I can’t. I want you to see me how I am now, not how I was.” His eyes met hers and saw his pain, his love, mirrored there. And so he told her all of it: about his time with the Deathclaws, about what they had stood for, about the lynching, about how he’d left. How she’d found him and saved him. 

And then there was silence. She said nothing, simply chewing her lip and avoiding his gaze. He sat and waited with baited breath for her to say something, anything. Would she leave? Would she accept him? She did neither, instead only muttering, “I need time to think.”

Whatever peace had fallen over him as he spilled his secrets and his sole to her was gone. Each rigid step she took towards the bed made his heart heavier. This was why he had kept these inside him so long. This is why he never should have told. 

He spent the night on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep. Every howl in the waste and creak of the house woke him. 

When at first it came, he didn’t notice the knocking at the door. It was only the second time the knock came that he stood, eyes blurred with sleep as he stumbled to the door. When he saw who was in his doorway he desperately wished that he’d grabbed his gun from the couch. 

“We gotta talk,” the leader of the Deathclaws said, hands tucked in his pockets. 

Deacon’s mouth went dry. He should’ve slammed the door in his face. Or better yet, he should have shot him. Instead, he stepped outside into the cold and slid the door closed behind him quietly. 

Maybe it was the way the other man’s shoulders were relaxed. Maybe it’s that he knew that voice - knew it meant something serious. Maybe it was the fact that those dumb signature sunglasses were still in place despite the darkness.

They walked a fair distance away before anything was said. Deacon was waiting for him to make the first move. He needed to know how to play this. 

“It’s been too long.” And that definitely wasn’t what he’d expected. The man tapped out a cigarette for himself before pulling out another and hanging it to Deacon. For some reason, he accepted. “I know we didn’t part on the best of terms but I felt I owed you this. Some of the other guys weren’t so happy about it but you deserved a warning.”

Deacon remained silent as he exhaled the smoke but his skin crawled. This couldn’t be good. Something was wrong here. He could feel it. “We murdered someone. A human. I’d say that ‘didn’t part on the best of terms’ is sort of an understatement. Never wouldn’t be long enough.”

He tried so hard to ignore the way the man’s shoulders fell, how his free hand found a pocket again, how he turned ever so slightly away. He couldn’t. “You know why we do what we do. It was a synth that killed all those people in Diamond City all those years ago. Sure, nothing major’s happened since then but it could. They’re a menace. We’re doing good by getting rid of them.”

“The first one wasn’t. That one was human.”

He nodded. “And we’ve gotten better at figuring it out now. At least admit you still believe in the cause.” The man grabbed Deacon’s arm, turning him so they were face to face. “I know the Deacon I used to know is still in there.” Deacon practically bristled at the word know. Oh they’d known each other alright but that man- no. That boy was long gone.

“He’s not. There’s nothing wrong with synths. If we can’t even tell them apart from humans, how inhuman are they really.” He thought he believed it wholeheartedly. He wanted to. But if he did would he be standing here discussing it with the leader of the UP Deathclaws?

The air got heavy as he thought of a response. Finally it all came out in a rush. “Barbara’s a synth. Your wife… Your wife isn’t human. She’s one of them.” He must’ve been lying. She couldn’t be. “I’m sorry, Deacon.”

He took off running and the Deathclaw did nothing to stop him. He ran and ran despite his lungs screaming for air and his legs demanding a break, collapsing when he got to the house. 

There she was. Strung up with a rope on the front porch. Blood, beaten, broken, and most certainly dead. As her body twisted slowly he could see the metal components dangling from the back of her busted in skull. It hadn’t been a lie. She was a synth. And they had killed her. Barbara. His wife. And they’d left her on display for him. 

He remembered only bits of the next couple months. He remembered finding his old UP Deathclaws jacket and growing out his hair orange again. He remembered buying an aluminum baseball bat. He remembered tracking down member after member. The ones he could remember and the ones those gave up in an effort to save their own skin. He marked each kill on the bat. 

He remembered when he finally found his old friend, their leader. He remembered how resigned he had been. He remembered how he’d been given a merciful death and taken the sunglasses for himself. A bullet to the brain. He remembered considering the same for himself.

He would have if a hand had not found it’s way to his shoulder one night in a bar and whispered in his ear. “Have you ever heard of the Railroad?”

He hasn’t looked back since.

**Author's Note:**

> This is simply my take on the story Deacon tells in his final affinity conversation. I hope you enjoyed my take on it! If you did, I basically live on comments and kudos so I would love if you considered leaving one or both. Thanks!


End file.
